


Valar Glaesis

by afterandalasia



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Dark Daenerys Targaryen, Dark Magic, Episode AU s08e06 The Iron Throne, F/F, Horror, Isolation, Loyalty, Mad Queen Daenerys Targaryen, POV Missandei (ASoIaF), Resurrected Missandei (ASoIaF), Ruler of Westeros Daenerys Targaryen, Undead Missandei (ASoIaF), femslash exchange 2019, us against the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 12:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21457855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: Missandei returns into a world of ash and silence, with the cold of death still clinging to her bones.
Relationships: Missandei/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 10
Kudos: 66
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2019





	Valar Glaesis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Wavesinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/gifts).

> Uh... hi. I saw your amazing letter in the request summary, including being open to dark Missandei/Dany, and suddenly I just had to write.
> 
> Full Mad Queen Daenerys, so basically there's, uh, a lot of background death that gets mentioned.

“I burned them,” Daenerys whispers against Missandei’s lips, fingers in her hair. “I burned them all for you.”

The smell of ash still lingers in the air. Missandei does not ask how long it has been; if she hears, then she will know how long she was lost in the darkness, how long the bleak horror had been winding its tendrils into her, like roots into soil, like shadows into night.

Daenerys kisses her brow, her cheeks, her lips, over and over; it tastes bitter and salty on Missandei’s lips. Danaerys’s fingers are cold and hard against her scalp in a way they did not feel Before.

Or perhaps it is just that all of her memories seem so sweet now that she has them again, in contrast to where she has been, to where she is now.

The moon rises over the blackened bones of the city. Daenerys takes Missandei’s hand and leads her away from the blood-strewn dragonpit, sand sticking to their feet. Along deserted streets and, Lord, she wishes that she could not see the shadows of fire that still linger against walls, could not smell death and burning. She recognises streets scoured clean, knows that nothing can truly remove the knowledge that horror has been wrought here.

There are no wings in the sky. The leathery creak of Drogon’s wings, their companion for so many years, is _gone_, and Missandei would feel cold if there were not already ice in the pit of her stomach.

Grey Worm meets them, at the ruined gates of the Red Keep, with sadness in his eyes. He does not speak to them as Daenerys leads her through the cold, still halls.

Daenerys had talked of King’s Landing, murmurs in Missandei’s ear as they lay curled together in the warm Meereen nights. It had sounded so golden, so beautiful, rich and ripe and just waiting for the true Queen’s return.

“Khaleesi–” she begins to say, but the look that Daenerys turns to her is as desperate as it is angry, and she falls silent again.

A fire is lit, the water waiting barely more than warm now, but the rooms are hollow and empty and _cold_.

But she knows better than to ask again, recognises the look in Daenerys’s eyes. It was there when Viserion fell, for all that Daenerys tried to close it away behind the walls of the Khaleesi. Only Missandei had heard her cry over her son, quiet keening sounds muffled against Missandei’s breast, whimpering tears. It grew deeper and more terrible when Rhaegal was torn from her.

Missandei knows without asking that Drogon has fallen. That time has passed. There is a haunted look in Daenerys’s eyes, the look of a hunted animal, but one which has claws and teeth and has outrun its own fear. She will have to learn what betrayals have torn Daenerys like this, and how she has kept herself in the face of all that she has lost.

If she has kept herself.

The darkness recedes, at least, as Daenerys removes the cloak from Missandei’s shoulders, unclasps the thin blue dress beneath. For a moment, Missandei does not dare look down at her body, not sure if the air on her skin feels so strange because it is in some way different, or simply because it feels like it has been so long since she has felt it.

Daenerys washes clean Missandei’s hands, and kisses her knuckles. She wipes streaks of blood from Missandei’s arms and shoulders, and her lips are warm on the damp skin. She bathes Missandei’s neck, fingers lingering and lilac eyes shining in the torchlight, and finally, tentatively, Missandei raises a hand as well.

The skin of her arms is unblemished, unmarred, though there is dirt still beneath her nails. She raises a hand to her neck, avoiding Daenerys’s half-hearted attempts to push it away, and trembles at the feeling of the thick scar around her neck.

It was real, then. The fall of the axe. This is not some blow to the head that has cost her memories. The darkness, the cold, the aching terrible silence… all of it was real.

“Khaleesi… Daenerys,” she whispers, barely daring to break the silence between them. “Please… what have you done?”

The air feels cold, she thinks, but it does not matter to her in the way that it did before. This whole land had felt so cold, so unlike what Daenerys had spoken of, desolate and full of hatred and fear. Missandei has watched Westeros hurt and spurn a woman who came longing to help it, devour her children and spit out their bones. Stand and watch as Missandei heard the whisper of a blade in the air, felt the explosion of pain and then–

She has to close her eyes to shake the thought, but a shiver runs through her all the same.

A soft splash, then both of Daenerys’s hands are cupping Missandei’s cheeks, and there are scars there which Missandei knows were not there before. Missandei opens her eyes again to Daenerys’s fear-filled, love-filled eyes, braids dishevelled and bells too tangled to sound as they should. Daenerys strokes Missandei’s cheeks with her thumbs, teeth catching on her lower lip.

“I have cleansed the city,” she whispers. “I have destroyed Cersei, and her legacy, and all those who stood by and let a monster rule them. The Starks plotted against me, but they are gone now. My enemies are gone, and I can free Westeros now. I can free them all.”

Missandei tries to speak, tries to summon words to remind her Khaleesi, _her_ Daenerys, of all the people that she had tried to save. But the memories of the darkness rise in her again, the way that it had swallowed her down like drowning, how time had stretched out and turned to nothing and she had lost herself to a moment of eternity. Her eyes fill with tears, breathing turning ragged, and she crumples into Daenerys’s hair, gripping her queen’s arms as the memory rises like cold vines on her skin.

“I need you,” Daenerys breathes, and Missandei shivers. Daenerys’s hand slides down to rest over Missandei’s heart, on her trembling breast, and it is only then that Missandei realises what is wrong, what has been wrong all along.

Her heart does not beat.

Her heart does not beat, she cannot hear the rush of it in her ears, she does not feel heat in her cheeks. She draws another shaking breath, but still she feels the stillness in her bones.

“What am I, my Khaleesi?” she says.

Daenerys shifts, and Missandei is forced to look up again, but still there is nothing in the world but them, nothing but the hollowness and the pain in Daenerys’s eyes and the yearning in Missandei’s chest to heal it.

“You are my Missandei,” Daenerys replies. “As you have always been. I need your wise words, my love. Every advisor from this land, they have betrayed me, they have…” she shook her head. “I need your mind. I need your words. I need your _heart_, my love… I have been so alone…”

She lowers her head to Missandei’s breast, and Missandei steals a glance through the window of the chambers. In the distance of the city, there are lights; there are others, then, at least, not just Daenerys and Grey Worm in some hollow shell of a city. But it is too quiet, too still, like a little of the depths of death are here upon the city as well.

Missandei raises a hand, trails her fingers through Daenerys’s hair. She will need to braid it again, to form in hair a crown more meaningful than any piece of gold. Daenerys shifts closer, tucking her head into the crook of Missandei’s neck, where it has always fitted so perfectly.

“I will bring my children back,” says Daenerys. “But first… first, I needed you. As I have always needed you.”

Finally, at Daenerys’s touch, she feels some warmth again. It sparks in her throat, where Daenerys’s breath brushes; it swells in her breast where Daenerys curls against her. Missandei closes her eyes and allows herself to feel it again, to feel at all, love as tight as any manacles binding her, bonds she has chosen and cultivated and built. It clenches in her gut and tightens in her throat, and she curls around Daenerys like a vine.

“I am yours, my Khaleesi,” Missandei replies. “_Va moriot, aōhon iksan._”

**Author's Note:**

> "Va moriot, aōhon iksan" - "Forever, I am yours" in High Valyrian.


End file.
